Olivia Carpenter grew up in Johnstown OH, northeast of Columbus, where she and her family members were the only black people. With an older sister and two younger brothers, the family of 5 knew their survival depended on each family member working hard.  

Olivia: “We grew up doing landscaping in the summer’s brutal heat. As kids, my siblings and I also took on paper routes. We loved our parents and as we grew, we understood they each had challenges growing up. My father was raised by a single mom who worked all the time. Left to their own devices, my father’s siblings struggled with addiction, and my father knew he did not want to follow that path and strove to be a good father.  

My mother was beautiful and talented, but she never realized how intelligent and special she was. She would say ‘This is nothing’ when she was complimented. She had been a ballet dancer and a college student, but dropped out to raise my sister. 

 
No matter the challenges in my parents’ life, they remained encouraging of us kids. They would often say, “You can do anything. You can be somebody great, but you have to work hard to achieve that.” 
 

“I wanted to do well, so I told myself, ‘I will be somebody.’ And even early on when I saw injustice, I decided to always fight for what I believed in, and knew nothing would be handed to me. At a very young age, I decided I’d attend a good college. That was my ticket out of poverty.” 

“When we moved to a house in the countryside, I would walk through a neighbor”s cornfield to school. I would think about my situation as a black female and wonder ‘Who am I’? ‘What can I bring to the world?’” 

“I loved reading and writing, and I signed up to be in the Power of the Pen competition in middle school. They gave you 45 minutes to write a short story based on one sentence provided to all the participants. I succeeded at the district level, then the regional level, and made it to state. One of the stories I wrote in the state competition was about a girl who resembled me–trying to bring people together to escape a catastrophic fate. The girl in the story told the others, ‘We have to get out! We must escape!’ But in the end, the girl could not succeed.” 

“I felt I must be the best to escape the fate of the girl resembling me who couldn’t succeed.” 

“In high school I crammed everything into my day that I could. I excelled in Mock Trial and participated in the Model UN program. 

“I joined the marching band. I didn’t have time to practice a complicated instrument, so I signed up to play whatever percussion instrument was needed. And I performed with the Color Guard tossing and catching flags, and I was told that our performances and dances were beautiful; I was often selected to solo at half-time.” 

“I also loved art,in particular drawing lions. Something about their power, beauty, and loyalty enticed me. As I grew more aware of social justice and the discrimination African Americans faced, I thought how art can be essential to freedom.” 

“While in high school I began my own cookie business, Via’s Cookies.When I decided to run for class president I delivered baked cookies to every kid who would be voting…I was told that the guy who lost the election to me called me a Nigger, and had lots of mean things to say. But even when I was 13, I understood that some people with unruly rage and bigotry had grown up being treated roughly.” 

“I served as class president every year that I ran–cookies part of my campaign. I did not run senior year, as the class president was tasked with planning reunions, and I didn’t intend on going back.” 

“To be sure my college application was well-rounded, I joined our high school choir and performed in many musicals. I loved singing, but I decided to trade in musicals for track, having heard that one could get a larger scholarship for sports.” 

“I was strong from physical labor since I was a little kid, and had a natural talent on the track. I practiced every day and eventually progressed from district to regional to state as a sophomore in the hurdles. It was a long battle, and I tripped many times, struggling each year to not let anxiety trip me up when it mattered. Senior year of high school, in the last race of my track career, the 300-meter hurdles, I flew through the finish line and won state champion. I had overcome hurdles both physically and emotionally and was ready for a triumphant future beyond Ohio.   

(Mzo: Stay tuned for Part II:Olivia’s Comes to Ithaca.)